You Won't Believe The Absurdity Of Criticism About Coca-Cola's Brilliant Social Campaign

Frivolous lawsuits and flimsy reporting, once just American diseases, have gone global. The ‘Share a Coca-Cola’ campaign (see description below) is the latest proof that international society and the press work in ludicrous ways.

In Eglash’s article, she tells us that: “Earlier this week, one Arab-Israeli citizen sent a legal petition to an Israeli court calling the campaign discriminatory. Not one Arabic name, he pointed out, appears among the popular Israeli names identified by the drinks giant, even though Israel’s Arab population numbers more than 1.5 million.”

I reached out to Eglash and she provided the source (in Hebrew) of the complaint, and I used Google Translate to learn that the Plaintiff Ziad Qasem from Nazareth wants the court to force Coca-Cola from making the same, “discriminatory practices in the future and compensate the consumers who are part of the Arab population in Israel for mental distress and feelings of deprivation, all because of the discriminatory conduct, an amount estimated at 20 million.”

So far, we have a journalist who covers the story fairly, and an Arab-Israeli citizen who is asking for $20 million (I’m not sure if this is US or Israeli currency) in compensation for discrimination.

So here’s where it gets absurd.

As Eglash’s story got out, NPR, Huffington Post, MSN Money, Food and Drink Europe, and several others picked up on the story and used headlines that like “consumer backlash” and “controversy”, cited the complaint in Israel, and as further proof pointed to so-called negative Facebook updates like below:

Worse, most of the articles represented Coke’s campaign as negligent or discriminatory and did little analysis beyond including a few terse comments from Coke’s PR department. These are the type of journalists that are more likely to be satisfied with superficially appealing answers and are less likely explore common sense.

So let’s quickly dissect the situation. First, Coca-Cola worked with Hewlett Packard to print personalized Coke labels for bottles shipped to 32 European countries. Instead of the standard Coke’s logo, the bottles carried 150 of the most popular first names (for each country) in an effort to connect with a younger demographic.

It turned out to be a brilliant social campaign best described by Marit Kroon, Marketing Manager, Coca-Cola Europe, “The ‘Share a Coca-Cola’ campaign is a way to talk to teens in a very personal way. - This – getting personal – is something that helps us win the hearts of teenagers.”

The quasi-advocacy campaign encouraged Coke drinkers to share a Coke with their friends whose name was on the bottle. Imagine getting a personalized bottle of a soft drink – that’s impressive. That was smart.

But, according to some of the journalists covering the campaign, because Coke failed to include Arabic names like Mohammed or any other name not included in the campaign - that the campaign was either discriminatory or controversial or both.

The first problem with their reporting is their complete disregard for analytical thinking. None of the journalists mentioned Plaintiff Qasem’s compensation request – a big miss and one that suggests ulterior motives. Also, most failed to understand that using an Arabic name on a commercial brand (especially deep American roots) would be seen by many in the Muslim community as offensive.

The second problem lies in the duty of the journalist which is to seek the truth and provide a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues while limiting the amount of sensationalism – especially at the expense of another company or person. In this case, most focused on a single complaint filed in an Israeli court and a false sentiment assessment of Coke’s Facebook page as evidence of discrimination and controversy. MSN writes, “Furious fans with overlooked names like Libby, Beverly, Graziella and Rhiannon took to Coca-Cola's Share A Coke Facebook page to share their outrage.”

Now look at the Facebook activity stream graphic above. Do Libby or Beverly appear furious?

It’s unfortunate that some journalists either won’t or can’t put things in proper context. Instead of writing about an innovative social campaign - and perhaps a short mention of a complaint – lazy journalists will over play the political or race card for their own benefit. Never mind who or what it hurts – or whether it’s does their readers a disservice. They have viewer counts to maintain after all.

So in the end, what is most distressing about the poor coverage is that it serves as further evidence that the press, despite the notion of objectivity, still engages in subjectivity. This is the kind of Shabby journalism that gives journalists a bad name.

Postscript: Eglash tells me that the Coca-Cola Share a Coke campaign was seen as a big success in Israel.